Moments: Hawaii

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Before

In the dark, you'd never know this was paradise.

* * * * *

Mailani's big dark eyes had sparkled when she first met Lorna. They been moving things around in the apartment with the door open so the puppies could dash in and out when a small delicately built islander had knocked on the door, Lilli's teeth sunk firmly into the hem of her long skirt. "Does this belong to you?" she'd asked ever so amused.

Lorna glanced over at Mailani now, plastered to the latest boyfriend, giggling in his ear. Tilting her head back, Lorna started to say something to Alex and realized that he'd vanished. She tried to remember when he'd walked away, when she'd felt his arms move from around her waist and his warmth from her back and realized she didn't know.

Lorna shivered and moved toward the fire on the water's edge.

* * * * *

Lorna wasn't really certain whose idea this party had been. She had suggested dinner to the Geology study group and Alex's surfer friends had naturally been invited as well but this shift into a raucous, loud, and entirely college party hadn't been anyone's idea so far as she could discern.

Scanning the living room, Lorna located Alex's blond head over in the corner. He was chatting with a girl she didn't recognize. Not that she needed to know her to interpret the oh-so-casual hand on his arm, the 'idle' playing with her necklace as it dipped into her low-cut shirt or the intimate shift of her body into his. Alex, Lorna knew, would be perfectly oblivious. He never noticed the way girls all but attached themselves to his legs in bids for attention. But Lorna noticed.

She really should go over there and make it clear exactly how off-limits he was. If Lorna recognized the type, the ring would scare the flirt away though she'd slander Lorna's name in retaliation. If she didn't, the girl would take that as permission to continue.

Lorna turned and hauled a coed away from hanging dangerously over the railing by the studs on her belt, looking perfectly innocent when the student looked around to see what had happened. "Soda?"

* * * * *

She looked down at the phone, replaying the conversation in her mind. She needed to get up. Go shower. Go to sleep. Alex was waiting for her, all unaware that she'd just been berating his brother. Not that it had done any good. But she also wasn't sure that she'd done all she could. For a moment there, it had felt more like she was going through the motions instead of believing what she said. She'd sympathized with Scott though her loyalties had to lie with Alex. What was wrong with her?

She'd been right to call. Right?

* * * * *

Lorna slid into a chair, setting her coffee cup down and raised an eyebrow at the giggling girls around it. She'd come to rather enjoy this late night study group even if the all girl set tended to be a bit shallow. Usually they got in equal amounts of gossip with their studying and tended to be more lighthearted than petty. This time though they turned to her with wide and jealous eyes. "You're so lucky," cooed Brittany, reaching out to grab Lorna's left hand, "You don't have to worry about what you're going to do for Valentine's Day. You're already engaged." Next to her Stacey nodded emphatically. Even quiet Ellie sighed her envy.

Lorna rolled her eyes, "It doesn't magically solve all problems, you know. I still have to figure out what we're doing."

She may as well have been talking to the air.

* * * * *

Lorna looked around her apartment—their apartment really, because Alex spent as much or more time there as he did in the dorm—and took a deep breath, pressing her hands to her stomach, trying to convince herself that the sick, rolling feeling was all in her head and not at all the first moments of a growing panic. Her hands clenched to fists and the slim gold band on her finger bit into her skin and sent the panic higher, clutching at her throat choking off her breath. She pressed her hand to her mouth and sat heavily on the couch. This was insane. How could she be feeling this way? How could she now of all times be doubting?

The front door opened and her head whipped around, eyes wide at Alex’s greeting. She was up in an instant, sweeping together her books from the coffee table, never opened. She forced a smile to her face as she went to meet him, giving him a welcoming kiss. It was sweet and familiar…and passionless. Comfortable, like everything else here.

Lorna was certain that she needed Alex. Her therapist agreed, even scolded her over it occasionally, seeing the relationship as too dependent. But for the first time in years, Lorna was having doubts. And she didn’t know what to do about it.

“Dr. Patterson was telling me about this semester course that he wants me to apply for,” Lorna said later over dinner. “It’s in California, Berkeley, but I thought I’d like to check it out anyway. Just get some more information, you know?”

She couldn’t look at him, afraid he’d see in her eyes…she didn’t even know what. But she was afraid.